Bloom Impact is empowering people to grow their wealth while making a positive impact on climate change.
Meet Camille and Bertrand, Co-Founders of Bloom Impact, who are committed to delivering a net zero future by making climate impact investing easy.
1. What led to the inception of Bloom Impact?
Born in the French Alps, I (Camille) grew up in the mountains and close to nature. In 2018, after reading the heartbreaking UN IPCC report on Climate Change (essentially learning that we only had 10 years left to avoid an irreversible climate disaster), I decided to leave my career in Marketing and eCommerce and put my skills to the service of climate action.
I then joined EnergyLab, Australia’s leading clean-tech startup accelerator where I got inspired to create my own company to make an impact. Hours and hours spent amongst clean energy innovators, I learned that we have all the technical solutions to stop climate change at our fingertips, but an enormous climate funding gap is keeping us away from reaching a net-0 carbon economy and a safer future.
Realising the scale and speed at which we needed to act to avoid irreversible damage to our climate, I became passionate about one of the most powerful weapons our generation can use to fight climate change — finance. I quickly realised however that most people don't have access to climate impact investments so I created Bloom out of the frustration of not being able to invest my own savings into clean energy and clean-tech. Bertrand, my partner in life and co-founder, joined me shortly after that.
2. What problem is Bloom Impact solving? And what role does community play in it?
Bloom’s mission is to make Climate Impact Investing easy and accessible. We empower people to grow their wealth while making a positive and scalable impact on Climate change. Sadly today, only wealthy sophisticated investors can access Climate Impact Investing (think - A person who has aggregated a net wealth of $2.5 million or has at least $250,000 in the last 2 years, that’s only about 2% of the Australian population!). We believe everyone should be able to own a piece of a solar farm, wind farm or innovative clean-tech company. We exist to empower people to own the clean energy transition and benefit from it. Our community is a group of people ready to use their money power for good. We gather every fortnight and invite experts to learn about sustainable finance and how to invest smartly in clean energy and clean-tech. Anyone can join our community and waitlist here.
3. What, for you, has been the biggest learning on your journey? And how has it impacted you?
The Financial industry is highly regulated so one of our biggest learnings has been to stay true to our vision and persevere despite all the obstacles we have faced to develop our product (regulations, compliance…). This challenge was also a blessing in disguise because it forced us to acquire a solid knowledge of the industry quickly. Ultimately, it has pushed us to have a very well-validated and thought-out business plan.
Our second learning has been the power of building a community. It seemed to be very time-consuming and difficult when we started but it was the best thing we have achieved so far. People have now pledged to invest over $1M on our app waitlist, and our community is growing quickly (already 900+ members). This has given us a genuine opportunity to approach bigger players for partnerships and a fantastic source of insights to design a solution that our customers will truly love.
